Four hundred new jobs could be created in Kirklees for young people who live on estates with high crime rates who are at risk of becoming offenders.

The move is one of the key aims of the three-year Crime and Reduction Strategy launched today by the Kirklees Community Safety Partnership to address public fear of crime.

It is also proposed to provide the young people involved with individual mentors, counsellors, and new leisure activities linked to the environment as well as encouraging them to train or go into further education.

Another aim is to identify and help up to four communities with a high rate of truancy, school exclusions, crime, poverty and poor health.

The partnership behind the strategy is made up of representatives from Kirklees Council, the police, probation service, health authority, Kirklees Federation of Tenants' and Residents' Associations and victim support.

They also want to make town centres safer by cracking down on begging, street trading, drugs and violence in pubs and clubs and drinking on the streets.

Other ideas include improving the transport system, more closed-circuit TV cameras and better designed buildings to make them safer for the public.

Top priorities in the strategy are to cut house burglaries, car theft, drug dealing, racially-motivated offences and domestic violence.

It will done by targeting offenders, giving more support to victims and witnesses, involving businesses and residents in helping to combat crime and doing more research on offending behaviour.

Council leader Councillor Gary Dimmock said the strategy would build on successful existing pioneering initiatives in Kirklees such as the Repeat Victimisation Scheme to help residents whose home are repeatedly burgled. It has been held up as a model for other parts of the country to follow by Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Kirklees also runs successful projects to help victims of domestic violence and race attacks and offers those caught possessing drugs counselling and treatment as an alternative to a court sentence.

Coun Dimmock said: "The Kirkless area was among the first in the country to bring together a number of agencies with an interest in and responsibility for community safety.''

Superintendent Adam Briggs, commander of the Dewsbury police sub division, said the strategy's targets were challenging but he was confident they could be achieved.

He added: "The strategy will reinforce our partnership commitment in Kirklees and represents an exciting new approach to tackling crime in our local areas. It presents a tremendous opportunity for all the key agencies and local people to work together in creating safer communities.''

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